Beginner's Luck

by Kate Clayborn

  “So, Kit,” I say, pulling myself back on course as she’s narrowing her eyes at a new image she’s brought up. “How come you’re down here doing this work at…” I look down to check my watch, “eight thirty p.m., instead of, you know, during work hours.”

  “Oh,” she says, half-distracted, absorbed in her image. “During the day, I’m doing tech stuff, helping other people with their experiments, or doing repairs on the scopes. And I do some instruction for classes too, when I’m needed. So my days are really pretty busy. But after hours I can get a lot of this really cool stuff done on my own.” She pauses, looks sideways at me, suspicious. She knows right where I’m headed with this.

  “You should have this kind of access all the time.”

  “I do have access,” she says, looking back at the screen. “I like how it is here—how I can be involved in a lot of different parts of running the machine. I’m good at experiments, but I’m good at tech stuff too. I’m good at repairs, and I’m good at teaching.”

  “Right, but—the stuff you’re doing here, this has real application potential.” I point toward the screen. “You’re figuring out what makes this sample a strong metal, right?”

  “Right,” she says, leaning back in her chair and rotating to face me. “So?”

  “We—well, the metallurgy division at Beaumont—we want to know that too. We want to know why that metal is so strong so that we can engineer a metal similar to it, one that’s not going to corrode at a high temperature, or when it’s wet. You can find that. You can help us build a new fan blade in a turbine engine, or a new…”

  “I know that,” she says, interrupting me. “I know there’s applications for what I do, obviously. But that’s not what I’m interested in. I’m interested in the basic science. I’m not interested in having my agenda set by a company’s product line. Obviously I’m not against it if my research finds its way to an application stage, but I’m not interested in being the one to put it there.”

  “But what if you were promised the kind of freedom you’re talking about? What if you were working with a team big enough that you could do your experiments, and someone else would take on the business of application?”

  She shakes her head. “It doesn’t work that way. There’s too much interference.”

  “Kit, you’re surrounded by interference here. That’s what you just said. You’re working on other people’s projects, you’re showing other people the ropes, you’re repairing stuff…”

  “But I like that. I enjoy being a part of other people’s projects. Dr. Singh and I—”

  “Right, Dr. Singh,” I say, finding my stride now. “He’s P.I. on nine of your papers, yes?” She looks caught off guard, and I press right on. “I read them all. And you know, I’m going to venture a guess that you’re doing an awful lot of Dr. Singh’s work.”

  “Don’t you imply that,” she says, her response angrier than I’d anticipated. “Don’t imply that he’s taking some kind of advantage of me. Dr. Singh and I work really well together. He taught me everything. He gives me opportunities that I wouldn’t have had because I don’t have the PhD, because I’m here as a lab tech. He trusts me completely. He trusts what I know and what work I can do. I’d do anything for him,” she says, and snaps her mouth shut.

  That’s a revelation I can use—her loyalty to Singh. But I’m going to hold it in reserve. I don’t want to go there yet. The room feels close, warmer now, even though I’m pretty glad about this purple sweatshirt still. “I don’t mean to offend you,” I say, gentling my voice. “But if you want those opportunities, why didn’t you get the PhD? Why are you here as a lab tech? Kit, you’re fucking brilliant, seriously. You could be P.I. on any one of those papers.” An idea strikes me. Greg said he didn’t want a PhD, but as a bargaining chip, he might relent. “If there was a funding issue for the PhD, Beaumont has job-sharing programs. If you came to work for us, you could start work on a PhD at UT…”

  “I don’t want a PhD. If I’d wanted one, I would’ve gotten one. But you don’t seem to understand that I’m perfectly happy here. That I’m not chasing something bigger—”

  I hold up my hands, feigning surrender. “I understand. But you’re good enough that the world’s going to chase you, Kit. You have to know that. And I’m only here trying to give you some information, trying to let you see a different version of this.” I gesture around the room. “Let me tell you about Beaumont. If you’ve got no interest at all, then what’s the cost of looking?”

  “My time,” she says bluntly, but there’s that look in her in her eye again, that little pulse of fear.

  I offer up a crooked smile. “But really, Kit. How bad can it be, to have a little extra time with me?”

  She takes me in, suppressing a smile, then rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “Ugh. Your face.”

  “But no suit this time, right?” I ask, gesturing to her purple sweatshirt.

  “You can walk me home,” she says, already starting to switch off knobs. “That’s how long I’ll give you to talk about Beaumont, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, but I feel like I’ve just won the Kit lottery.

  * * * *

  I waste a good amount of my walking time talking about hot dogs, but it is entirely worth it.

  When we come out of the basement’s building, it’s muggy, but clear. I can even see a few stars up there past the city lights. Kit tries to beg off having me walk her once she realizes I have my car, but I tell her we’re both going to need the exercise once I take her to eat.

  “Eat? It’s nine o’clock! Too late to eat.”

  “It’s going to be worth it, I promise,” I tell her, leading the way through some of the campus paths until we emerge at its edges, where the university’s neighborhood intersects with Shaftesbury Park, a small, run-down neighborhood that always managed a little charm with its food carts. “Behold,” I say, spreading my arms wide, “the Wiener Cart.”

  “Subtle,” she says, smiling at me.

  “I don’t know if that’s its real name. I don’t even know if it has a name. But this is what my dad and I called it. I checked with him to make sure it was still here before I came tonight. Only reason to come near campus, in my opinion, unless you’re trying to make the case to a genius metallurgist who’s wasting her talent.”

  Pretty much Kit is ignoring me at this point. She’s already stepped up to the cart and I’m fairly sure she just said “hot dog me” to the guy working. I admire her adventurousness, and the fact that she gets pickled peppers on hers. I get the same, pay for our food, and we’re on our way again.

  “I already knew about the hot dog cart,” she says, chewing.

  “Shit! I thought I was giving you some of my expert knowledge here. You teach me about probes, I show you the Wiener Cart. There’s a symmetry in that, if you think about it…”

  “Oh my God. First the probe, now this. And you made fun of my toilet joke!”

  We head toward her neighborhood, Kit making an occasional moan of satisfaction, and I decide that I am, despite all the knowledge Kit has dropped on me in the last two hours, actually stupider than I was when I began this day, if I thought watching Kit eat a hot dog was a good idea. I keep my eyes determinedly ahead, trying to find a way to start up a meaningful pitch, but it’s taking a minute for my brain to stop ignoring my body.

  “What was it like growing up here?” Kit asks, interrupting my thoughts. The question catches me off guard. This weekend, Kit had seemed a little jarred by the brief foray we took into personal things, and though seeing her at the microscope today had showed me more about her than any interaction we’d had yet, we hadn’t talked about anything other than her work.

  “I mean,” she continues, “my friend Greer grew up here, so she’s told me a lot. I was only making conversation.”

  God, this woman. She is fucking adorable when she gets shy. “Where’d your f
riend grow up?”

  “The west side of town. Cherry Hill.”

  I nod, wiping my mouth. “That’s a pretty nice area. Good schools out there. I grew up not too far from the yard, on the south side. It’s kind of an older suburb now, most of the houses built in the early 1980s. Guess that probably doesn’t seem so old compared to a historian like you, though.” She smiles over at me, and I take another bite of my hot dog so I stop thinking about how pretty she is.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t grow up in a house like mine,” she says. “Wouldn’t that kind of thing be perfect for your dad?”

  “I think it’s sort of the same as what they say about contractors, you know? Their own houses always need the most work. We’ve got a lot of old stuff around the house, but I don’t think he wanted to do much restoration of his own.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Plus he’s not a great housekeeper, so it was easier for us to have a small place. And one that had a built-in microwave. Not much of a cook, either.” We stop at a crosswalk and I almost reach a hand out to guide her across, but stop myself. This isn’t a fucking date, I scold myself.

  “It must be hard, what you’re doing,” she says, as we reach the other side. “Taking care of him.”

  “It’s not too bad.” And the truth is, it’s not. There are definitely bad parts—we’re past the sponge bath stage, thank God, but Dad still needs help in and out of the shower, especially with the damned garbage bags we have to put over his casts, and it’s still a big punch to the solar plexus when I see him get tired so easily, when his good hand shakes from the fatigue of overcompensating. But I like being around Dad, around the yard. I always have, even when I was a young asshole and it seemed like I didn’t. “It’s the least I can do,” I say. But that’s a little too much information, so I take the last bite of my hot dog to keep from saying more.

  “You mean because he raised you?”

  “Sure,” I say, once I swallow. Redirect. “Where’d you grow up?”

  “Ohio,” she says, her voice flat.

  “The whole state?”

  “Mostly the northeast corner. It was cold and snowy, and that’s about it.”

  I sneak a glance at her, and she’s balling up the wrapper from her food, looking down. “You know, if you want warm weather, Texas—”

  She looks over at me, scowling, but her eyes are laughing. “You’re shameless.”

  “Listen, Kit,” I say, taking her trash and tossing it and mine into a nearby can. “I know the weather’s not something that’d get you to Texas. When I first came to you, I’d been told you were good, that you were a top recruit. But tonight, seeing you work—you’re incredibly talented, exactly the kind of mind my company needs. The opportunity you’d have there, the equipment, would be unlike anything you’ve seen before.”

  “Is this your pitch?” she asks, arching a dark eyebrow.

  “It’s not. My pitch involves a lot of things—a virtual tour of what your lab would be. A conference call with the people who’d be your team. A review of the salary package that includes a very generous bonus structure, with stock options. A chance for you to be able to ask all your questions, and for me to answer them. This is just me telling you”—I clear my throat before going on—“as your friend, that you should consider Beaumont.”

  We walk for a bit in silence, getting close to her house now, and I know I won’t have time to actually go through this stuff with her, but somehow, this feels right, what I’ve done here—Kit’s eased up around me, even when I’m talking to her about this, and that’s major, given the way I’ve been striking out up to now.

  “Are we friends?” she asks, stopping in front of her gate. She adjusts the bag she has resting across her body and looks up at me. The streetlight casts her dark eyes in gold, making it look like there’s fire behind them. I’ve entirely lost my train of thought.

  Again.

  “I think we are,” I finally say. “I mean, I fixed your toilet. I wore a purple sweatshirt in front of you. Also my breath probably stinks right now. So I don’t know. I think it’s the real thing, Kit.”

  She rewards me with another smile, then looks toward her door. “I guess I should go in,” she says, but she sounds reluctant about it. “If we are friends, maybe you’ll help me out if I come to the salvage yard again?”

  “Absolutely.” This will be another excellent opportunity for my father to embarrass me, but still, the more time I have with Kit, the better.

  “Okay. You help me with—you know. My knobs and hinges.” She breaks off here to give me a quelling look, and I chuckle. “And I’ll listen to your pitch. The whole thing—the virtual tour, the stock options, whatever.” She offers up this wavy, all encompassing gesture, which suggests she’s not going to take any of it all that seriously. “But it doesn’t mean I’m interested, okay?”

  “Sure,” I say, and she serves me another one of those stern looks, a don’t try and handle me stare. There it is again, that feeling: I want to kiss her so bad that I can feel it in the palms of my hands, at the backs of my knees.

  I watch her go up the stairs, make sure she gets into her house safely. She waves at me through a panel of sidelights flanking her front door. It feels—I don’t know. It feels sweet, like I’ve just had my first date with her, like I’m hoping she’ll go in there and call a friend to talk about the great guy she’s met. But I know, I know that’s not what this is about.

  I pull my phone from my pocket, swipe my thumb across the screen. I’m in, I text Jasper, and make my way back to my car.

  Chapter 7

  Kit

  It’s Thursday morning and I’m at my desk, clicking through a set of images Ben Tucker sent to my personal email—over thirty-five photos and three videos of the microscopy lab at Beaumont’s Houston division. When I’d first seen the email on my phone, I’d told myself that I’d look more closely when I got home. I didn’t want to bring up an email about a job offer on my work computer. But then I’d happened to see one of the thumbnail images, and—well. An FEI color and spherical aberration corrected scanning electron microscope? I can’t be sure, having never been much into the stuff myself, but I’m pretty sure this is how people who are tempted by pornography feel.

  Ben hasn’t added any commentary to the message—probably he figures the pictures do all the talking, and I guess they do, because the lab at Beaumont looks incredible. It’s not just the equipment, either—this is the look of a lab that has a professional, scientifically trained cleaning staff, and it’s the look of a lab that has zero cash flow problems. Over the past few days, since Ben visited me here at work, this has been his strategy, mostly. It’s not him that does the pitching. Instead, he sends me this sort of thing—pictures, but also papers that have come out from Beaumont’s team, an annual budget report for the metallurgy division that looks sizable enough to run a small country, and, probably most convincingly, a link to a TED Talk from one of Beaumont’s lead software engineers, a petite woman named Kim-Ly Nguyen who completely owns the room, describing her work on developing programs for remote surgical procedures. I don’t know much about software other than what I have to know for the running of the scopes, but it doesn’t matter. It’s compelling to see someone in corporate science be so engaged, so connected to the work of what she does.

  It’s not that Ben has left himself out of the picture. On Tuesday, I’d gone after work to the salvage yard, planning to spend maybe an hour getting started on the list of hardware we’d drawn up. But one hour had turned into three, mostly because Henry had offered to take me on a tour of the whole place. We’d made our way through the expansive space, Henry wheeling along at my side, talking happily about the different “zones,” and as it turned out, my favorite was the same as his, the area toward the back that was lit by vintage chandeliers and light fixtures that Henry himself had restored. Eventually, Ben had joined us there, expla
ining that he too had been trained to do some of the lighting work, and I’d been transfixed by learning about all the different chandelier parts. The space was warm from all the electric light, the prisms casting ripples of rainbowed pattern along the walls. Ben had enthusiastically described—in more detail than I would have been able to provide—my house to Henry, who’d leaned forward in his chair, nodding, as though this was a really important issue to him. “You don’t want to be a slave to the restoration,” Henry had said, looking at me. “You want historical pieces, okay, but don’t think everything has to be from the same era. You pick stuff that catches you, that speaks to you. It all has a story. It doesn’t have to be a story from the same time period.”

  “Kind of how I can see you making eyes at that mid-century pendant light,” Ben had said. “It’d go great in your foyer.” Then he winked at me. And it didn’t even feel sleazy or awkward. It felt the same as pretty much everything else Ben did, which meant that it felt charming and sweet and more arousing than it had any right to.

  It was easy to be friends with Ben. That was the problem—he made you feel so welcome, as if nothing at all was an inconvenience or an intrusion or a waste of time, even though I could tell he had his hands full with his dad and the salvage yard. When I’d called him yesterday to tell him I wanted to buy that pendant light, he’d offered to bring it over to my house later, once he’d taken his dad to PT. I’d demurred, making my spin class excuse, but the truth was, I’d really wanted him to come over. I didn’t even really care if he had an ulterior motive at that point—I’d just wanted to see him.

  I was right now wearing the purple sweatshirt, for crying out loud. Because it still smelled like him.